fantastic_four

That could also be attributed to great acting on his part He delivered it very well and every scene he was in dominated everyone else on-screen, but the strength in his words comes from the writing. I attribute Killmonger's appeal far more to Coogler than Michael B. Jordan.

Yep. I wish they had ended it with a two-pronged approach--step one, to use Wakanda technology to bring Africa into the 21st century, step two to share that technology with the rest of the world.

Funny. I thought I just watched a kickass superhero movie, a great adaptation, beautiful story, killer acting. No hidden political message there for me sorry to disappoint at least not overshadowing the above treats Yes, it's both. Which really floored me in that moment that Killmonger challenged for the throne, because I thought beforehand I'd just be seeing a superhero movie.

While the film ended with T'Challa reaching out to the world, it's far easier to identify with Killmonger's mindset than T'Challa's if you're carrying a grudge against the West. Retribution is far quicker and easier than the approach T'Challa preferred. I've always assumed more black Americans identify viscerally with Malcolm X than Martin Luther King. Similarly, Killmonger's mindset seems easier to grasp than T'Challa's far slower approach. Hopefully I'm being overly pessimistic here.

The moral of the film was explicitly laid out by T'Challa to Killmonger--if you use Wakanda's weapons to overthrow the Western world, you're no better than the West was when they colonized Africa. Is that propaganda? Seems like the same non-violent morality the role models we usually venerate have long held, which is why it's easy to compare T'Challa to MLK's mindset.

If you like, sure. I'm not aware of any African heritage in my ancestry from the past few millennia yet from your stated position I'm far more outraged by slavery than you appear to be, but that's probably because I grew up in a predominantly black neighborhood and about half of my friends growing up were black. I'm sure if I had grown up entirely in the 'burbs I wouldn't care like most white people don't. But as for Killmonger's motivation, it's far less about slavery and more about the fact that T'Chaka killed his father in terms of his anger. His father's homeland's silence over the millennia while millions of Africans were sold into slavery are what drive him. That's the realistic kind of motivation for a villain I wasn't expecting before seeing the film.

Maybe, but it doesn't have much shot at winning. It's probably the most socially significant superhero film, but it doesn't have anywhere near the kind of significance of past barrier-breaking films like Moonlight, Selma, Malcolm X, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, or To Kill a Mockingbird. The praise on how groundbreaking Black Panther is only makes sense within the superhero genre, not outside of it within the larger landscape of films typically released in any given year. I'd put the odds of nomination and winning in about the same category that "Get Out" was in. Both were more genre films than art films, i.e. the primary purpose of both was mostly entertainment, not their respective social messages. Peele was primarily making a horror movie but deeply embedded his social message, and the exact same intent applies to Coogler in making a superhero movie.

His father is from Wakanda but his mother is American. The film doesn't explicitly address it but the odds are he was descended from slaves. Even if he wasn't I don't see how that lessens his potential incentive to empower Africa, to not want to be imprisoned by T'Challa, or to hate the past injustices of slavery.

Finally got a chance to read this. Aside from relishing his role as contrarian, some critics clearly think they can create a better film than anyone else and spend their review describing what a movie should have been while dismissing what it is. Armond is one of those guys and he REPEATEDLY does that in this review. I've got no respect for that and am always left wondering why they don't just test their mettle and go make their own films already.

Maybe, but it doesn't have much shot at winning. It's probably the most socially significant superhero film, but it doesn't have anywhere near the kind of significance of past barrier-breaking films like Moonlight, Selma, Malcolm X, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, or To Kill a Mockingbird. The praise on how groundbreaking Black Panther is only makes sense within the superhero genre, not outside of it within the larger landscape of films typically released in any given year.

It definitely is. You don't know it is throughout most of the film, but by the end when Neo is breaking all the barriers you realize it definitely is, right up to him zooming straight up into the sky Superman-style in the final scene. I'm not sure where to place it yet because it never occurred to me before today to compare it to the Marvel and DC films...could go anywhere from 5 to 20.

Haven't seen it yet...the two freeloaders in my sig line have sucked up most of my free time the past two years. I wanted to watch it this past weekend but ended up with no time after seeing Black Panther. I didn't even realize it was related to Unbreakable until a month or two ago. Also haven't seen Guardians 2 yet (I bought the disc months ago but haven't watched it yet), but other than that I think I've seen every major superhero film.

ARGH, I forgot the Matrix movies. Those are absolutely, positively superhero films. I liked the third film Revolutions the least, yet that Neo vs. Agent Smith fight was the best Superman fight, i.e. two invulnerable guys who can fly going at it, we had ever seen up to that point. I'm pretty sure Matrix and Reloaded fit in somewhere in the bottom half of my list. Reloaded reminds me of Iron Man in that it has a significant amount of really hum-drum parts, but the entire sequence from the multiple Smiths battle, through the Merovingian encounter, through the battle with the Merovingian's men, through the highway chase sequence is THE best action sequence of ANY film, EVER.

Come to think of it this probably is my own personal bias towards First Class. Fox had originally planned a Magneto solo film, but they eventually scrapped that, took the best ideas from the screenplay, and put them into First Class. So the sequence with Shaw killing his mom, the plot of him learning to use his powers, him hunting Shaw down, ultimately killing Shaw and taking his signature anti-Xavier helmet from him, and then going on to form the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants probably appeals more to me than the average person who doesn't like Magneto quite as much.

The Quicksilver sequence is one of the best in any superhero film. A close and similar second is the Nightcrawler sequence from the opening of X2. Both of those may be Bryan Singer's best work ever (outside of the Usual Suspects). I get what you're saying about that Sentinel fight at the end, but I HATE that sequence. The entire time it goes on all I can think about is how any of them could possibly do ANYTHING about those overly-powerful Sentinels.

Oh, one other thing to note about my list--my own personal list of favorite films is very different from the one I listed, and I tried to list films in the order that I thought they were objectively best. For example the Daredevil film is in my personal top ten, but I'm aware of how bad some parts of it are. Doesn't matter, I love the character and I love a lot of the things Mark Steven Johnson did with the film, particularly the soundtrack which might be the best of ANY superhero film. In the list in my original post I weighed my own opinion against critical opinions as well. But critical opinions can often be swayed by factors that don't make something a necessarily great film, so in no way was critical acclaim my primary ranking factor. The two best examples of this are Wonder Woman and Black Panther--both were fine films, but both got a bit more acclaim than they deserve for being a great superhero film because most critics are ho-hum on superhero films to begin with and gave a lot of problems from those two films a pass for their social significance.

I haven't seen it since it was in the theatre so I probably need to see it again. I remember really enjoying it but not finding it as fun as the Civil War airport battle or as viscerally compelling as the idea of Iron Man fighting Winter Soldier for killing his father. The whole political angle of Civil War is extremely thought-provoking, too. I generally enjoyed Civil War in the comics, but I never understood the idea of publicly revealing every hero's secret identity. Yes, I get the accountability they were going for, but they really need to put every friend and family member in mortal danger every moment of their lives? Just acting like a police force that only deploys when ordered to seems enough, revealing your secret identity always seemed like a bad idea, so I was really glad when the film ditched that idea.

The two films I've agonized over the longest are Iron Man vs. Avengers. Avengers is more consistently enjoyable throughout the film, but that first hour of Iron Man is absolutely spectacular. It's the last hour focusing on Iron Monger that's hum-drum at best, but the whole streak of Stark getting captured, creating the suit, saving those people in that Middle Eastern village, and then fighting with the jets may be THE most enjoyable sequence in any superhero film.

Lot of people ranking Days of Future Past above First Class, so there must be something I'm overlooking about Days of Future Past. One of the things I really disliked about it was how incredibly powerful they made the future Sentinels; every one of them was more powerful than almost every mutant. I far prefer the idea from the comic that while they could trash a bunch of them, there were just so many of them that they eventually got overwhelmed. I REALLY loved the origin stories showed in First Class. The retro feel was fun, Kevin Bacon was great as Sebastian Shaw, the Magneto origin was fantastic (this might be part of my own bias since he's my favorite super-villain), and that ending battle with the battleships was just completely awesome. What is it about Days of Future Past people love so much?

Why do you like Winter Soldier so much more than Civil War?

I haven't seen that or the Batman Lego movie, but I've always heard they're both awesome. Kinda saving them both for when my kids are old enough.

I'll pencil that one into the #119 spot right below this one:

I've done this on and off over the years, but in trying to decide how Black Panther rates against other films it's time to put more thought into it. How do the best superhero films of all time stack up against each other? I'm interested in feedback in my current ranks or seeing your own rankings. I expect to shuffle the order beyond the top four in the near future, but for now here's where I'm at: The Dark Knight Spider-Man 2 Batman Begins Logan Iron Man Avengers Captain America: Civil War The Dark Knight Rises Black Panther X-Men: First Class Spider-Man: Homecoming Captain America: The Winter Soldier Superman Thor: Ragnarok Deadpool The Incredibles Spider-Man Watchmen Wonder Woman Batman Returns Superman II X-Men: Days of Future Past Guardians of the Galaxy Batman Unbreakable

I'm #4,382 who doesn't like spiders.

Wikipedia says it was a summer program at Oxford after getting a degree at Howard where Rashad was one of his teachers.